Don’t get between Rebecca Blank and a piece of university grant funding.
That’s the lesson UW-Madison learned when Blank, now a finalist for chancellor, staged a competitive bid for federal funding against UW-Madison’s Institute for Research on Poverty, long a recipient of the money.
Rebecca Blank, former dean and current professor of University of Michiganâ??s school of public policy, stressed the importance of fundraising and diversity as the fourth chancellor finalist to visit campus Thursday.
While at Michigan, Blank secured the school a PhD degree program and created an undergraduate degree for public policy. She has also contributed to fundraising on the Ann Arbor campus and worked in the White House as a member of economic advisors for former president Bill Clinto
MADISON, Wis. — A leveling off in federal funding to major research universities like the University of Wisconsin-Madison has experts in the research field worried that a crisis is looming.
Privately and publicly funded research is a billion-dollar business in Madison, and it affects the area residents’ health and pocketbooks.
“I think this is a serious crisis for our country. It’s going to have an impact on long-term health of not only research but the health of the people in the country,” UW School of Medicine and Public Health Dean Robert Golden said.
Faculty and students had the opportunity Wednesday to get a feel for what one of the four candidates to fill the chancellor position in the fall would like to achieve were he to receive the position.
University of Wisconsin chancellor candidate Rebecca Blank named private fundraising as the top priority for the next person who replaces outgoing leader John Wiley.
Timothy Mulcahy, current vice president for research at the University of Minnesota and finalist for the UW-Madison chancellor position, said Wednesday his experience at Minnesota can be applied to the UW-Madison campus.
â??Minnesota has done a tremendous job of looking at itself as an institution and embodying a new course for its future. I think that the University of Wisconsin needs to undergo a similar type of inspection,â? Mulcahy said.
â??This is the beginning of a journey: for some, a journey to college, while others are returning to college,â? said Odyssey Project Director Professor Emily Auerbach.
The Odyssey Project offers members of the Madison community an opportunity to begin a college education through an intensive, two-semester course. The programâ??s goal is to provide wider access to college for nontraditional and low-income students by offering a challenging classroom experience, individual support in writing, and assistance in applying for admission to college and for financial aid.
Auerbach said that the Langston Hughes poem â??Still Hereâ? embodies this remarkable classâ??s collective sentiment, after they had spent a year engaged in rigorous study while handling financial and family responsibilities that had previously made a college education seem little more than a dream deferred. â??Sometimes you can make a way out of no way. If you open the door to education, you can change lives,â? Auerbach said.
MADISON, Wis. — The last of the four finalists to become the next University of Wisconsin-Madison chancellor met with the public Wednesday.
Rebecca Blank, the former dean at the Gerald Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan, answered questions Thursday at the Memorial Union.
Blank, the only candidate without UW ties, outlined her desire to run the school.
About a dozen fraternity members from the Sig Ep house that burned down on Monday night toured a new house.
This one is directly across the street from the old one.
“It’s ironic, the new one would be across from the old one,” said Ryan Sugden, a fraternity alum and spokesman for the group of 28.
“We’re committed to finding a new place where we can remain a fraternity,” said Sugden.
Rising food and gas costs are finally hitting UW student’s pocketbooks.
The first victim was beer. The price of a pitcher on the Union Terrace increased by a quarter over winter break
This summer, UW students will pay an extra three to four percent for union food. That’s about 10 to 15 cents more for a Badger Burger.
Louise M. Frye, age 88, died peacefully at the Don and Marilyn Anderson Hospice Center on Monday, May 12, 2008. Louise was a supervisor at the UW Survey Research Lab.
Saturday’s crash of a Med Flight helicopter near La Crosse should heighten Wisconsin’s sense of urgency about providing medical helicopters with recommended safety equipment.
When the helicopter leased to UW Hospital crashed into a hillside, killing all three on board, it was not equipped with night vision goggles or terrain warning technology.
Q. Does the amount of carbon dioxide in the air go up during the winter because trees lose their leaves and grass is covered by snow?
A. Seasonal changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide are well documented, says UW-Madison geography professor Jack Williams, with long-term records showing peaks every winter and troughs every summer.
Tim Mulcahy could be called the insider-outsider candidate for chancellor at UW-Madison.
He spent 20 years on the faculty and in administrative positions at UW-Madison before leaving for the University of Minnesota in 2005, where for the past three years he served as vice president for research.
And he clearly still embraces UW-Madison as his home institution, often referring to the university’s priorities as what “we” need to do to stay competitive and to improve.
The sun is constantly shining, the expanse of ice and snow stretching for miles in all directions is amazing — but the walk to work through minus 30 degree temperatures at an altitude of nearly 10,000 feet is no picnic.
In other words, it’s just another summer day at the South Pole.
For two Park Ridge natives, the icy, barren terrain of Antarctica doubled as home and office this past January during what is the Southern Hemisphere’s summer season.
Michelangelo D’Agostino, a physics Ph.D. student at the University of California at Berkeley, and Paul McGuire, an information technology specialist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, spent five weeks at the South Pole working on a scientific experiment called the IceCube Project. The project involves the construction of a telescope at the South Pole that will detect invisible subatomic particles from space called neutrinos. The data that is collected will be useful for astronomers in understanding more about the galaxy, D’Agostino said.
The countryâ??s biggest potential water problem â??is what we donâ??t knowâ? about water and climate change, the University of Arizonaâ??s Nobel Prize-winning climate scientist testified in Congress today.
â??We donâ??t know what lies underground . . . We donâ??t know how climate change will affect water resources,â? said Prof. Jonathan Overpeck, director of the University of Arizonaâ??s Institute for the Study of Planet Earth, in pushing hard for more federal support of research on the effects of climate change on water supplies and on possible solutions.
He testified as his own future at the UA remains unclear. He has been one of two finalists for the position of director of the larger Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin and Madison. He has been interviewed for the job and is weighing a decision on whether to stay or leave UA. His decision is expected this week, said his wife, Julia Cole, a UA associate professor of geosciences.
MADISON, Wis. — The third of four finalists to become the next University of Wisconsin-Madison chancellor met with the public Wednesday.
R. Timothy Mulcahy has been serving in the role of vice president for research at the University of Minnesota since February 2005. Prior to that, he spent 17 years in various roles on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus.
Quoted: Chiara Cirelli, a sleep researcher at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, says the study is a “wonderful” proof that it’s possible to get high-quality EEG data from sleeping wild animals. The method might also be used to gauge sleep intensity, she says, another important measure for understanding the function of sleep. “We just need many, many more” studies like this, says Cirelli. Rattenborg and his team are up to the challenge: Ostriches are next.
Quoted: Ken Goldstein, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
For some time now I have had the opportunity to offer comments on issues, both local and global, in this space thanks to the good people at the River Falls Journal.
We have explored a wide spectrum of topics and, hopefully, some of those thoughts have been useful.
Quoted: Morris Davis, a real estate professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
TV celebrities and public officials are popular speakers at commencement ceremonies this year as colleges increasingly cater to student interests.
TV mogul and philanthropist Oprah Winfrey will speak at Stanford University, the University of Delaware has baseball star Cal Ripken Jr., and Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland hosts Internet entrepreneur Craig Newmark (craigslist).
One of the biggest surprises this year was Harvard’s choice of Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling.
A growing number of colleges are recasting the tradition of senior-class gifts by encouraging their graduating classes to focus more on giving â?? preferably money the college can spend as it sees fit.
U.S. Rep. Ron Kind has agreed to include Libertarian Kevin Barrett in campaign debates later this year.
Barrett, a 9/11 skeptic from Lone Rock, announced his candidacy Monday in Sparta just before Kind held a listening session.
In the hallway, Kind and Barrett spoke amicably, and Barrett asked about debating. Kind replied, â??Iâ??m sure we will during the course of the campaign. Absolutely. I usually look forward to those as the year progresses.â?
Barrett issued a statement later saying his respect for Kind â??just went up a couple notches,â? and called it a breakthrough for the â??Libertarian party and the 9/11 truth movement.â?
Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton scored a big win in Tuesday’s primary in West Virginia, beating Barack Obama by almost two to one in votes. However, UW-Madison political scientist Charles Franklin says the win provides only a “psychological boost” for Clinton, who still trails Obama in delegates.
Franklin says Clinton is running out of options, because she’s low on campaign cash and would have to capture 70 percent of the remaining delegates to catch up to Obama.
Franklin says Clinton’s only hope is to convince enough super delegates to bring their support to her campaign.
MADISON, Wis. – If you want to find out who one of the youngest Democratic superdelegates in the country supports, check out his YouTube video.
University of Wisconsin-Madison student Awais Khaleel, 23, became the first superdelegate in the country to use the popular Web site to announce his endorsement of Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.
MADISON, Wis. — Several members of the Dane County Board of Supervisors announced plans to hold a community meeting next Monday in connection to the county’s 911 system and the ongoing controversy about whether a call from the cell phone of a slain University of Wisconsin-Madison student was mishandled.
The meeting, which is set for 6 p.m. in Fitchburg, will feature comments from several local officials with time for questions from the public regarding the death of Brittany Zimmermann, 21, in early April and the call that came from her cell phone to the Dane County 911 Center.
Dane County 911 Center director Joe Norwick, Dane County executive
Investigators collected debris, ash, and burnt wood today from the scene of the fraternity fire on Langdon Street.
Head Investigator Lt. Brad Olson told 27 News it’s too early to say what caused the fire, although he says it started somewhere in the rear of the house.
“All possibilities are still on the table,” said Olson.
The State Crime Lab will analyze the material for possible evidence of arson. Olson says this is part of any routine investigation into such a large fire without an obvious cause.
Representatives of Dane County law enforcement agencies and fire departments asked for more time before deciding whether to support changes in 911 Center practices to have police and fire departments notified of every 911 call.
The review of center practices was ordered by County Executive Kathleen Falk and prompted by the mishandling of a 911 call from the cell phone of murder victim Brittany Zimmermann.
Two of five previously undecided superdelegates in Wisconsin have endorsed Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, including a previously undecided superdelegate from Madison.
College student Awais Khaleel announced his decision in a video posted on YouTube. Khaleel did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment Wednesday.
For the first time, the National Collegiate Athletic Association has revealed the growing amount of financial support that colleges provide to their sports programs, using detailed accounting to separate institutional funds from money earned through ticket sales and private donations.
A March report from the NCAA concludes what many have long feared about the real costs of college sports: The vast majority of athletics departments operate in the red.
Monday UW graduate student He Chang was in a panic.
His family lives in Sichuan Province.
16 miles away from the earthquake’s center.
“I started to call my family, and I couldn’t get to them. So I was worried,” Chang says.
After hours of frantic calls, he talked to his family who was scared, but safe.
They described the chaos to him over the phone.
All that online pressure, all the instant messages on AIM and Gchat, all those YouTube comments and Facebook messages and wall posts added up to something: Two more delegates for Sen. Barack Obama.
In a YouTube video posted shortly before midnight yesterday, Lauren Wolfe and UW-Madison student Awais Khaleel, who as president and vice president of the College Democrats of America are among the youngest Democratic superdelegates, endorsed Obama. In the two-minute video, Wolfe said: “We’ve received over 5,000 e-mails . . . hundreds of YouTube comments. . . . We support Senator Barack Obama.”
The only internal candidate selected as a finalist for University of Wisconsin chancellor said Monday his love for the university and desire to bring about meaningful change make him the best fit for the job.
Gary Sandefur, the current dean of the College of Letters and Sciences, spoke at two forums on campus Monday. Sandefur has served as dean since 2004 and began as a sociology professor at UW since 1984.
University of Wisconsin students and community members met Tuesday with current Cornell University provost Biddy Martin, one of four finalists to fill the chancellor position this fall.Â
Formerly a professor of German and Womenâ??s Studies at Cornell University, Martin has served as provost since 2000. Â
The patient transported by a Med Flight helicopter that later crashed died hours after arriving at a La Crosse hospital, a coroner said Tuesday.
The elderly woman died early Sunday after suffering bleeding in her brain, Crawford County Coroner Joe Morovitz said.
The University of Wisconsin Hospital Med Flight helicopter crashed Saturday night on the way home to Madison after dropping the woman off at Gundersen Lutheran hospital. A doctor, nurse and pilot on board were killed.
Biddy Martin, provost of Cornell University and finalist in UW-Madisonâ??s chancellor search, expressed the importance of higher education Tuesday during her visit to campus.
Martin graduated from UW-Madison with a doctorate in German studies in 1985. She has since been at Cornell working as a professor in German and Women studies and took on the role as provost in 2000.
Martin said her love of Madison drew her to the chancellor position.
Lindsay Midtbo, a UW-Madison senior, is looking for a job â?? but not in Wisconsin.
“I was born here, I’ve been here forever,” Midtbo, a Milwaukee native, said. “I want something new and different.”
Midtbo, an economics major who graduates this month, is hoping for a job in Chicago. The city offers more financial services jobs and a change of pace, she said.
Midtbo isn’t alone in wanting to leave the state. Each year, about half of UW-Madison’s recent graduates leave Wisconsin for Illinois, Minnesota and other states.
The presumptive favorite, with history and much else on its side, is the Memorial Union Terrace. Some feel the Union Terrace is the very heart of Madison. In 2001, the Utne Reader ran a story titled “Soul Searching,” which sought to identify the “unique spirit” of several cities, including Madison.
The story asked: “Where do you go to find the true heart of your city? In Seattle, many would say Pike’s Place Market. In Chicago, Wrigley Field.” The story continued: “In Madison, the lakeside beer garden at the University of Wisconsin student union.”
A faulty altitude detector was cited as a contributing factor in the last fatal crash of the same kind of helicopter owned by the same company as the Med Flight chopper that crashed Saturday night near La Crosse.
The National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the UW Hospital Med Flight crash that killed three, said a faulty radar altimeter contributed to the crash of a Eurocopter EC135 helicopter in the Potomac River in Washington, D.C., in January 2005.
Cornell University Provost Biddy Martin, one of four candidates in the running for UW-Madison chancellor, is no stranger to hard decisions.
Nor does she duck controversy, colleagues say.
At Cornell, she co-chaired a committee that recommended dissolving the division of biological sciences and spreading the majors among campus schools. It was a dramatic change for the 30-year-old division.
Madison fire officials are searching for the cause of a fire late Monday and early Tuesday that destroyed the historic Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity house at 237 Langdon St.
Fire Department spokesman Eric Dahl said Tuesday afternoon that evidence from the blaze has been sent to the state Crime Laboratory to test for accelerants to determine whether the fire was arson.
MADISON, Wis. — Monday kicked off a week of meet-and-greet opportunities for the public to talk with the four finalists vying to become the next University of Wisconsin-Madison chancellor.
Dr. Gary Sandefur, the dean of the UW’s College of Letters and Science, took questions Monday from the public and faculty at Memorial Union on campus.
Sandefur is no stranger to campus. In fact, he’s worn a number of hats since arriving on campus in 1984, including professor of sociology.
MADISON, Wis. — The second of four finalists to become the next University of Wisconsin-Madison chancellor met with the public Tuesday.
Carolyn “Biddy” Martin is currently the provost of Cornell University in New York. She earned her Ph.D. in Madison 23 years ago.
“That’s the advantage that probably everyone from the outside would bring, a fresh pair of eyes, a new look at things, a less strong sense than people who’ve been here for longer that things have to be done in the way they’ve always been done,” Martin said. “Of course, it often turns out be the case that they’ve been done that way for a long time because that’s the right way to do them.”
http://www.channel3000.com/education/16259561/detail.html
MADISON, Wis. — The second of four finalists to become the next University of Wisconsin-Madison chancellor met with the public Tuesday.
Carolyn “Biddy” Martin is currently the provost of Cornell University in New York. She earned her Ph.D. in Madison 23 years ago.
“That’s the advantage that probably everyone from the outside would bring, a fresh pair of eyes, a new look at things, a less strong sense than people who’ve been here for longer that things have to be done in the way they’ve always been done,” Martin said. “Of course, it often turns out be the case that they’ve been done that way for a long time because that’s the right way to do them.
MADISON, Wis. — Madison fire investigators have cleared the scene of a fire at a fraternity house on Langdon Street, but there is still no word on what caused the fire at the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity house late Monday night.
The Madison Fire Department said the fire caused about $750,000 in damage.
Authorities said that the first fire call came in at about 11:40 p.m. A Madison police officer in the area said she noticed a glow coming from inside the fraternity house and went to investigate. Upon discovering the fire, Officer Angie Dyhr said she pounded on the fraternity’s front door to get the attention of residents. She helped safely evacuate everyone inside.
MADISON, Wis. — Four television and newspaper media organizations filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against Dane County, the city of Madison and Madison Police Department as part of an effort to obtain open records information concerning the county’s 911 system and the investigation into a University of Wisconsin-Madison student’s death.
The smoke billowing from the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity house on North Langdon Street was so intense, you could smell it eight blocks away.
Three firefighters suffered minor injuries, but no students were hurt.
The fire destroyed the house worth 750 thousand dollars. 28 students must now find alternate places to live.
Within an hour after firefighters came to battle the fraternity house on fire, the UW Dean of Students and her associates were on the scene helping the students who lived inside the house.
Argyle Wade, an associate dean of students, says it’s his office’s job to reach out to the students and help them deal with classes.
Angie Dyhr is a bubbly, but shy, police officer who was on routine patrol Monday night on Langdon Street.
Driving by fraternity houses, something caught her eye inside the 3-story white Sig Ep house.
“I saw what looked like campfire, maybe a grill,” she says.
Officer Angie Dyhr was the officer who noticed the fire. She says she just happened to be at the right place at the right time. Langdon Street isn’t even her assigned patrol area.
Dyhr says once she saw the flames she immediately thought back to the training she just underwent that taught her how to react in this type of emergency. She started banging on the door to get the student’s attention was able to get all of them out of the house. As soon as the door opened she says black smoke came billowing out. From the looks of it she didn’t think any of the students knew what was going on but is just thankful they all made it out alive.
Budget repair legislation has passed the state Senate. Democrats caucused all day, and the vote to plug the state’s $527 million dollar budget hole went off without debate. Afterwards, Minority Leader Scott Fitzgerald condemned the deal.
Congressional aides working on a compromise bill to renew, or reauthorize, the Higher Education Act have reached tentative agreements on several sections of the measure, but negotiations continue over some of the most contentious provisions.
Aides to members of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate have been meeting informally over the past several weeks to negotiate their chambers’ differences, with the hope of producing a bill that lawmakers can vote on by Memorial Day. While it remains unclear if they will reach that goal, a draft of the agreements reached so far is being circulated in Washington this week.
Among the issues that appear to be resolved: college-cost watch lists, accreditation, and campus piracy. Among the unresolved: state higher-education spending, textbooks, and a controversial 30-minute emergency-notification rule.
Teach for America, the program that recruits top college graduates to teach for two years in public schools that are difficult to staff, has experienced a year of prodigious growth and will place 3,700 new teachers this fall, up from 2,900 last year, a 28 percent increase.
Wisconsin, Berkeley and the University of Texas are each sending 50 recruits.
If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging.
That good advice, usually attributed to humorist Will Rogers, is apparently lost on Wisconsin’s legislative leaders.
On Monday they announced a deal to get the state out of a $527 million budget hole by â?? shoveling as fast as ever.
Paul Kamps has been an emergency dispatcher in Dane County longer than the county 911 system has existed.
The 56-year-old said he became a Madison police dispatcher because he gets meaning in his life from helping people – whether that means delivering babies over the phone or comforting someone whose loved one had died.
Since the death of Kelly Nolan, a 22-year-old UW-Whitewater student who disappeared after partying on State Street, Madison residents have seen two more tragic killings of young people in which the questions far outnumber the answers.
A movie about one of the most notorious murder cases in Madison history: In June 1980, a brilliant UW-Madison chemistry student named Barbara Hoffman, who also worked as a masseuse, was convicted of murdering Harry Berge, one of her massage parlor clients. She was acquitted of murdering Gerald Davies, who had also been a client. Both men had listed Hoffman as a beneficiary on life insurance policies.
Fire departments and emergency medical personnel will gather this morning in La Crosse to escort home the hearses of three people killed in a Saturday medical helicopter crash.
“Everyone around here feels like they have lost,” said event organizer and La Crosse County Deputy Medical Examiner Tim Candahl.
The escort is a tribute to the crew of three who died when a UW Med Flight helicopter crashed into a wooded hillside near La Crosse on Saturday night.
The Med Flight helicopter that crashed into a wooded hillside near La Crosse on Saturday night, killing its crew of three, did not have night-vision goggles and terrain warning technology as recommended.
But the head of the company that leased the chopper to UW Hospital said Monday the aircraft was safe.
